by Andrew Grant
Jackman took the dish over to the other side of the desk and tipped the contents into a clear plastic bag. It was twelve inches tall by eight wide. Large enough for a gun or a knife. No wonder he seemed so disappointed with my sorry collection. He sealed the top, and held it up to the light as if to emphasize how little my possessions amounted to. Then he stuck a label on the bag and dropped it into the top drawer of the cabinet. Without looking he nudged the drawer with his elbow, and while it was still grinding slowly back into place on its worn runners he made his way around to the bars.
Klein took his gun out of its holster and laid it on the corner of the desk. Then he grabbed my elbow and pushed me forward. Jackman took a bunch of keys from his belt. They were large and heavy, something you might imagine a medieval jailer would use. He unlocked the center section of bars and swung them open. They hinged outward, toward us. Klein shoved me through the gap. Jackman followed him, then pulled the gate back into place and made sure it was secure.
The wall to the left was blank. So was the one at the far end. To the right was a row of cells. There were five. They were identical. The front walls were made of bars. There was a gate in the center of each, all with a heavy lock. The sides were gray metal, three inches thick, filled with broad rivet heads. I realized the panel you could see from the lobby was the outside of the first cell. The rear walls were whitewashed stone. They were all covered in graffiti. It was scratched, rather than written or painted. A pair of benches ran parallel with the side walls. They were made of metal and had been bolted to the floor. The only other item in each cell was a toilet. The bowls stuck out from the rear wall. They were also made of metal-stainless steel-and none of them had a seat.
Klein led me past the first four cells. They were all occupied. There was a single person in the one nearest the lobby. A young guy. He had stained, shapeless clothes, lank greasy hair, and sunken features. He was standing hunched over near the toilet, looking wide-eyed and confused. There were five people in the second cell and four in each of the next two, but I could see the door to the last one in the row was standing open. It was folded back on itself, flush with the bars. When we reached it Klein let go of my arm. Jackman took over. He pushed me into the cell, and kept going until my shins were touching the toilet bowl. My nose told me it was a while since anyone had cleaned it.
“Look straight at the wall,” he said. “Now, keep looking at it. When I uncuff your left wrist, immediately put your hand on top of your head. Do the same when I uncuff your right wrist. Understand?”
I didn’t reply, but he released my wrists anyway.
“Good,” he said. “Now, stand still. Do not move until you hear me close the cell door. Understand?”
I listened to his footsteps retreat across the cell floor. It sounded as though he were walking backward. He stopped, and the door slammed shut, squealing on its hinges as it was dragged through 180 degrees. I heard the keys jangle as he worked the lock, and then two sets of footsteps receded down the corridor.
The graffiti in my cell was fascinating. It covered every inch of stone from floor to ceiling. People must have stood on the benches and even the toilet to find space. I saw people’s names, gang names, sports teams, including one English soccer club, political slogans, insults about the police, opinions of rock bands and movie stars. But mainly obscenities. And for some reason those were mostly in clumsy attempts at rhyming couplets, so they really made no sense at all.
I gave it a couple more minutes, then picked a spot on one of the benches and tried to get some rest. It wasn’t easy. The giant rivets kept digging into my spine and shoulder blades so I had to slide my back to and fro along the wall until I found a comfortable position. But even then, wherever I looked in that narrow space my eyes couldn’t avoid settling on one cold, hard object or another. The toilet, the other bench, the bars, the floor, the walls. This was definitely not what I’d had in mind for my last night in New York. I’d worked hard. I’d done a good job. I deserved a night to myself. But on the other hand, if the last few days had worked out even a whisker differently, I might not have had any time left to spend anywhere. Maybe this was just fate balancing the scales a little.
Without consciously intending to, my hand moved up to touch the back of my head. It was still sore. Two nights ago someone I was working with made a mistake. It was their miscalculation, but I was the one to pay the price. A piece of flying glass had cut me. A big piece. It had sliced my skin, right through to the bone. So I had to admit, annoying as the situation was, things could have been a lot worse. It wasn’t as if I’d never been locked up before. It comes with the territory. As cells go, this one wasn’t too bad. It was a bit small maybe, and pretty spartan, but relatively clean. And I was in there on my own. There’s nothing worse than being crammed in with a horde of unwashed lowlifes, spewing out their foul breath and trampling on your feet. Plus, I wouldn’t be in there long. Not like the hopeless cases you normally find in these places. Sad, desperate people clinging to the fruitless fantasy they weren’t going to spend the rest of their lives in jail. For me, clearly, it was only a temporary problem. A bump in the road. Nothing more.
Because in a few hours, I’d be on a plane back to London.
THREE
I first moved house when I was still in kindergarten.
It was because of my dad’s job. He worked for the government and for some reason they found it essential to transplant us from Birmingham to London. One large English city to another. On the face of it, not too big a change. But for a six-year-old, different worlds.
Looking back, violence was inevitable. I had a different accent. A different vocabulary. I was used to different rituals and routines. And it was the 1970s, after all. With hindsight, what happened the first time I set foot in the playground wasn’t a huge surprise. For a moment I stood on my own, looking around, getting my bearings. Then I noticed a group of kids coming toward me. I counted about twenty. All boys. At first I was pleased, thinking they wanted to play or to make friends. Two of them came right up close. The rest gathered around. They formed a tight circle. And started to chant.
Fight, fight, fight.
I’d never encountered a situation like that before. My old school had been happy and peaceful. I had no experience to base my response on. Only instinct. And it was telling me the danger had to be snuffed out fast, before things got out of control. I focused on the two boys in front of me. They were the biggest. Clearly a year or two older than the rest. One was a little taller than the other. And a little broader. That made him more of a threat, so I decided he had to go down first.
I was surprised, but one punch was all it took. It left him rolling on the ground, a mess of blood and snot and tears. Then I turned to his pal. Only I couldn’t hit him. He’d already run away, along with the rest of their little gang. And after that, until the day I left, they never came near me again.
It wasn’t a very good school. That was the only lesson I learned, the whole time I was there.
But I can’t complain. It’s served me well over the years.
I woke to the sound of footsteps on the far side of the gate. They were approaching the lobby. I could hear three sets. Two were confident and purposeful. The other was shuffling and reluctant. They drew closer, then stopped. I heard voices. One was Officer Jackman, starting the property-bagging ritual. The others were unfamiliar. I guessed it was around 2:30 A.M., Monday morning. I’d most likely been asleep on the bench for less than two hours.
Two of the cells only had a single occupant. Mine, and the one nearest the gate. If the guy in that one was as stoned as he looked, I knew they wouldn’t risk putting anyone in with him. Which meant I was about to get a new cellmate. I sighed to myself and leaned across to get a better view down the corridor.
Jackman was the first to appear. Behind him, two more uniformed officers were struggling with a prisoner. He was quite tall-about six feet two, only a couple of inches shorter than me-but incredibly wide. Everything about him se
emed distorted. His legs, his arms, his chest, his neck-they all looked stretched sideways, like a regular TV picture on a wide-screen set. He was wearing tight, dark blue jeans with white patches bleached into them, army-style boots with the leather stripped away to expose the steel toe caps, and a faded burgundy sleeveless sweat top. His head was completely shaved. He had a flat, square face apart from his nose, which was crooked from being broken too often. But the most eye-catching thing about him was the tattoo on his neck. It was a line of swastikas. They were scarlet, outlined in black, and drawn so that the hooks at the end of each arm were joined together in an unbroken ring.
Jackman opened the door and the two officers heaved the Nazi into my cell. They really put some effort into it, but he still came to a halt after one step. Jackman followed, but didn’t try to push him any further. The officers stayed close and drew their nightsticks. They looked tense. Their eyes didn’t leave the big guy’s back. One of them had grazed knuckles on his right hand. The other had red patches on his forehead and a cut about an inch long to the side of his left eye. Maybe they were afraid the Nazi might kick off again. Or maybe they were hoping he would.
Jackman began to gingerly remove the Nazi’s handcuffs. They were stretched to their widest setting to fit around his huge wrists. There was no “keep looking at the wall” speech this time, but the Nazi put his hands on his head anyway, without being told. I guess he was no stranger to the routine, and he wasn’t stupid enough to give the officers behind him any excuse to go to work with their nightsticks.
The Nazi remained completely still until the officers had locked up and pulled back to the lobby. Then he glanced over his shoulder to make sure I was watching, and stretched his arms up high over his head. The stench of stale sweat grew stronger. With his arms still extended, he unlaced his fingers and showed me that the way he’d been holding them, it was as if he’d been giving a V sign to the officers behind him. He half turned toward me, and the solid slabs of his cheeks folded into a huge smile. He began to chuckle, and finally broke into a braying laugh.
I kept my expression as neutral as possible and looked away, keeping track of him out of the corner of my eye. His laughter slowly trailed off and an embarrassed, sulky frown spread across his face. Then, slowly and deliberately, he turned to fully face me.
“The hell are you?” he said, as if seeing me for the first time.
“No one for you to worry about,” I said.
“The hell you doing in my cell?”
“But that could change…”
“The hell you doing on my bench?”
“Oh-this is your bench?”
“Yeah. And I want to sit down, asshole.”
“Sit on the other bench.”
“No.”
“Then stay standing up.”
“I want to sit on my bench. Now.”
“What makes it your bench?”
“I’m telling you it is.”
“It’s your property?”
“Yeah.”
“You own it?”
“Right.”
“So what happened? Did you buy it?”
“What?”
“The police department sell it to you?”
“Eh?”
“Your mummy write your name on it, so you wouldn’t lose it in the playground?”
“The hell?”
“Or did the guards name it after you? ‘The Imbecile Nazi Memorial Bench?’ In memory of your brain? Assuming you once had one.”
He took a moment before trying to answer this time, and I watched as his giant fists balled up by his sides.
“Last chance,” he said, stressing each word individually. “Off the bench. Right now.”
“What’s your name?” I said.
“What?”
“Simple question. What’s your name?”
“Derek. Why?”
“Well, Derek, let me ask you one last thing. ‘No’ is a short word. Which part are you struggling with?”
For ten seconds he loomed over me, pulling a pained expression as though I were a dim-witted acquaintance who was trying his patience. Then he shrugged, sighed, and made as if to turn and walk away. But instead of putting any distance between us he immediately spun back around toward me, using the momentum to throw a huge right-handed punch straight at my face. It was powerful. He had all his weight behind it. I would have had a serious problem if he’d hit his target. But subtlety wasn’t his strong suit. I watched what he was doing, and at the last moment I whipped my head across six inches to the right. It was far enough. His fist flew past my ear and tried to bury itself in the metal surface of the wall. I could feel the vibration running right down my spine. I don’t know how many bones he broke, but from the pitch of his screams as he clutched his hand and staggered back toward the toilet, I’d guess most of them.
I checked the corridor. There was no sign of anyone coming to investigate.
“On the gate,” I called. “Officer Jackman. This guy has a problem. You need to move him out of here. He needs help.”
There was no reply.
“Out of luck, asshole,” the Nazi said, taking a step toward me. “They never move me. Takes three of them. So it’s just you and me till morning. And I ain’t the one gonna need help.”
“Derek, it’s only a bench,” I said. “It’s not worth getting hurt over.”
“I’m not gonna get hurt,” he said, taking another step. “You are.”
“Derek, I’ve given you one chance. I’m not giving you another. Now sit down and be quiet.”
He stayed where he was for another thirty seconds. Just long enough for me to hope he might have the sense to let it drop. But no. People like him never do. He started to move toward me again. I eased onto my feet and backed up against the bars, ready to go.
“Derek, don’t do this,” I said. “It’s really not worth it.”
He took a final step, close enough for me to nearly choke on his vile breath. Then he smiled and shaped up to hit me with his left hand. It was a good idea, but again he lacked sufficient finesse. He just couldn’t disguise the movement in his right leg as he pulled it back, getting ready to kick me. So before he could complete his move I launched myself off the bars and swung my left elbow around, driving it into his temple.
He was already off balance preparing for the kick, so the force of the blow knocked him right off his feet. He fell backward, spinning around toward the side wall. The back of his head crashed into the metal. He slumped down, smashing his right temple into the bench. His momentum kept him going and he half bounced, half rolled face-first into the rim of the toilet and then down onto the floor. His left temple cracked against the ground and he finally came to rest between the bowl and the side wall. As his head connected with the concrete an arc of blood shook free from his shattered face, splattering the legs of “his” bench with little shiny droplets.
That was the closest he got to his prize.
After the medics had dragged the Nazi away Jackman came back and stood in the corridor, staring in at me through the bars.
“What was that all about?” he said.
I looked at him and shrugged.
“You do that to him?” he said.
“Me?” I said. “No.”
“So what happened?”
“No idea. The guy just collapsed.”
“And you were doing what? Sleeping?”
“No. Calling you to come and help him. I guess you didn’t hear me.”
“Let me see your hands.”
“Why?”
“The guy just collapsed, all on his own, and somehow got his face all smashed in. That seem a little strange to you?”
“No.”
“You didn’t help him on his way?”
“No. I didn’t touch him.”
“Show me anyway.”
I shrugged and pulled my hands out of my pockets. I held them up so he could see my palms.
“Other side,” he said.
I turned them o
ver. There wasn’t a blemish to be seen. Jackman stared intently as if hoping something would magically appear if he looked hard enough. Then he glared at me, snorted, and stalked away to the lobby. I thought about calling him back. The morning suddenly seemed a long time away. I was tempted to ask him to call the consulate for me. I know the right people. They could pull me out in no time. The NYPD would be told to forget all about me. Then I thought about all the paperwork that would involve me in when I arrived in England. The endless, stupid questions I’d have to answer. Maybe a reprimand of some kind. So I decided against it. I was safe where I was. I’d done nothing wrong. There was no reason not to let things run their course.
As long as I got to JFK on time, no one ever need know what had happened.
FOUR
You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
That could have been my new school’s motto. When the teachers finally showed their faces in the playground that first day all they saw was me on my feet and the other boy on the ground. I was new, and one of their guys was hurt. It was clearly my fault. I was marked down as a hooligan. A thug. Someone with a faulty attitude who needed close supervision. I was kept in at lunchtime for a month. Banned from the playground for the rest of the term. And barred from soccer indefinitely.
Things weren’t much better in the classroom. If I asked a question the teachers wouldn’t take it seriously. They just said I was being disruptive. Then they’d send me to sit at the back, on my own. Report me to the headmaster. Write moaning letters to my parents. Give me bad reports. It made no difference what I was questioning, or whether I was right or wrong. Whenever real life didn’t match their comfortable theories, it wasn’t the theories they doubted. It was real life.
